Strip
Remove one thing at a time; stop when the next removal would break it.
Tufte: the chart stripped to data-ink alone.
Seen in Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 1983
Try it on your work
Take the thing you're working on apart one component at a time: a part, an ingredient, a step, a feature. Stop when the next removal would make it stop being what it is. What remains is the load-bearing set; keep it in view.
Describe your project in ten sentences. Cross out one sentence at a time, reading what remains after each cut. Stop when the next cut would make the description untrue.
List every step in how you currently do the work. Remove one step and work without it for a day, then another the next day. Stop when something fails that you can name, and reinstate only that step.
How it has been used
Take things away one at a time and watch for the moment the thing stops being itself. Sculptors, editors and cooks all know the point where one more removal kills it; the work is finding that point, not guessing it. The move forbids stopping early: you don't remove what's ugly, you remove until the next removal would break it.
Where it leads
Grouped under Take something away